Day 14: I'm a Momo Fiend

I slept like a wee babe, what a treat! I shot out of bed at 7am with the will to move mountains. My prostate hummed a joyous melody as I emptied my morning bladder. My body thanked me for the day of rest. My lips, on the other hand, are a mess. Sunburnt, dry, and blistering. Just another factor getting in the way of my nonexistent love life. But that’s okay for now. I broke fast with my volunteer friend and we share a fruit bowl and some aloo paratha. We said our goodbyes and I came back to my room to find my laundry neatly folded on my bed. I seriously love this hostel. As I packed my things up I ran into the Moroccan guy who’d crashed in the dorm late last night. He actually got really angry this morning when at 6:30AM the Udaipur hotel mogul decided to take an extremely loud phone call. I admired the mans brashness in silencing this, when I know I probably would’ve just kept pretending to sleep so as to avoid confrontation. He said something to the order of “that’s just Indians man, where they’re from it’s always loud so they don’t even know when they’re being loud”. I nodded my head in agreement and gave the old what are ya gonna do shrug. The Moroccan is on a tour of the world. He loved Ladakh so much he actually spent the entire summer here hopping around hitching rides and doing treks. Though he’s Moroccan he smells and speaks like a Frenchman. I’m glad I ran into him because he’s been to the Zanskar valley and told me the few motor bikers he met who’d done it “regretted their lives”. I did some research and saw that only a few crazy bike packers have ever attempted it. Bike packing is a much lighter form of touring, and these guys had front suspension on some seriously high quality mountain bikes and even they had to hike a bike up some kind of 20km long 45 degree grade pass. I’m all for a challenge but that doesn’t even seem like type 3 fun. You’re also at around 15,000 feet, temperatures below freezing, exposed to an unforgiving wind on all fronts, and very few resupply locations. I just don’t think it’s going to work with my set up, so I'm back to the original plan on the black top highway to Leh. From Leh, I have several options that will still push my limits, including the highest motorable roads in the world, so I’ll try not to have too much Zanskar fomo. 

I went to the bike shop to scoop up Waziree for our morning momo session.. Predictably, he was sleeping in the corner of the shop wearing the same outfit as yesterday. Homie is sus, but he reminds me of a younger version of myself. Once again, he wasn’t hungry, but still took me to his spot. I had 4 momos and what they call chow mein on the side. The chow was serviceable but the mutton momos were finger licking lip smacking tummy patting good and they had this green Chile sauce on the side that was mwah! I ordered another 4 momos much to the amusement of Waziree. I can put food away, yes, because I’m a pro athlete and deserve it. We got some tea and I was feeling the momos pinning me to the chair so I had to get another tea to give myself courage to hop on the bike. After tea he took me to a pharmacy to get some much needed lip balm which I’ve already applied several times and it’s starting to heal the cracks in my puckers. After a tearful goodbye with my friend, who if I’d stayed another day would’ve invited me to join his volleyball team, I crossed the bridge and climbed the snaking switchbacks to rejoin the Srinagar-Leh highway. The whole day I climbed and climbed. The grade was pleasant and I had a good time of it. The first bit of climbing did trigger a bit of the old acid reflux and even some bile and so I guess in the future I’m not going to have so many breakfast momos right before vigorous activity. 

As my climb progressed I started seeing signs of Buddhism mixing in with the ever present mosques. Large beautiful bells and small shrines peppered the roadside and accentuated the hauntingly severe landscape of Ladakh. I had a late lunch at around 5 and, not happy with my mileage for the day and emboldened by my headlamp I decided to push on until the last drop of light. I didn’t realize I was heading straight for an enormous pass in the high desert. I kept thinking it would end, but it didn’t, and the lower the sun sank the higher and higher I climbed and the thinner the air got. It was a steep pass with heavy winds and virtually no camping opportunities anywhere to be seen.  Eventually, it was dangerously dark and I thankfully happened upon a small service road off of the main highway. I followed it uphill until it flattened out. Lucky it was carved into the face of a hill and offered some protection from the wind. Even though I was just a few meters off the highway, I felt safe and elevated. This would do. I quickly set up camp and had to used the headlamp towards the end to plant my stakes. I was happy to be able to slip into the tent and start reading Crime and Punishment. It’s a great book and it captured me immediately. I had been nervous to start reading the Russians, thinking that maybe their writing was too dense for me, but this is surprisingly funny and entertaining and philosophical. After Shantaram I read Heart of Darkness, which is pretty short, but to be honest I didn’t really pay attention to any of it. I somehow finished it not really understanding anything that happened. The horror, the horror. After that I tried reading the classic Stoic hit “meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. Unfortunately someone told me the other day that this book is very popular among finance bros as some kind of motivational tool, much the way they listen to rap music when they go to the gym or spend 12 hour days crunching numbers or whatever the fuck they do. This put a really bad taste in my mouth and honestly it wasn’t that interesting and I stopped reading it after just a few pages. Crime and Punishment is great though, I’ll probably keep exploring the Russians after I’m done with this one. After reading I had a somewhat okay night’s rest. I’m not sure that I really fell asleep, because my mind was racing for some reason, but I did feel rested when I woke up today. Still need to get that perfect night in the tent though. I wonder what Marcus Aurelius would think if he could see me now. He’d probably tell me to bodymaxx and stop whining or something of that nature.